When I did the IHC S100 restoration back in the late 90′s, I got my service manual and parts manual from Scott at Binder Books.  Scott is no longer with us, but his company still lives on.

So yesterday, I ordered a service manual (CTS-2304) and parts manual (MT-130) for the Scout II’s we are working on. These are high quality reprints made under license from the originals. I got in just under the deadline for their 10% May discount so the total cost with shipping was just under $150.00.  This may be the most important investment we make for these projects.

I have found the following links on the Internet that I would like to share with you:

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/transmissions/torqueflite-tom-hand.html

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/torqueflite.html

http://www.mopar1.us/727rebuild/

We got the Transmission and Transfer Case out of the Scout last night and started cleanup.

The Fifty Dollar Paint Job

The guy has pictures of it three years out and I have to say, it doesn’t look bad in the pictures.  I can’t say for sure what it looks like up close, but for some of the old trucks we drive around just for fun, it might not be a bad option.

RustyBucket

We have done a couple of Frame Off restorations and some partial restorations in the past.  When I say we I mean I and Brad have done most of the cleanup work and mechanical work.  The body work was left to the body shop.

If we want to continue to do any more restorations, we are going to have to learn to do the body work ourselves.  Like most of you, we can’t afford to drop $10,000 to $15,000 each time on a high quality paint job.

So we have been scouring the Internet and looking at this book and that book to get information on body work and painting.  We know it is probably just a matter of getting over the fear of doing it.

We finally found Kevin Tetz’s Pantucation.com website.  If he looks familiar, you have probably seen him on Spike TV’s powerblock shows.  Brad purchased his whole line of DVD’s and I have been watching them at night before I doze off.  I have to say the tips are great and I feel a lot more confident about doing some body work on one of Brad’s projects and ultimately on the Scout II project.

I would reccomend you get your hands on a copy of his DVD’s and go over to the web site and log into the forums.  Kevin answers a lot of the questions posted himself.

Ultimately over the next 6 or so months we will find out if he can teach an old dog like RustyBucket to do body work and paint an old truck.

Till later.. RustyBucket

So please be patient if you see a picture of your truck in the gallery, but it is not identified.  After a couple weeks if it still isn’t correctly identified, use the contact form to let us know.

RustyBucket

A few months ago my son and I went past a local salvage yard, and there was a gold Scout II sitting in the yard waiting to be crushed.  Well you know that couldn’t happen, so my son Brad stopped in later to check on it.  It was a 1972 Scout II right hand drive.

We assume it was initially purchased by a local rural mail carrier.  The salvage yard owner said he had the title so we talked a little longer and he mentioned he had a 1973 Scout in another building.  My son likes the 73′s better, so we went and took a look at it.  It wasn’t in that bad a shape, so after a little dickering, the guy said “Why don’t you buy them both”.  To which we said “What kind of deal can you make us?”.

Long story short, Brad ended up with both of them at a reasonable price.  That was back in December.  We let them sit there until January  and one nice Friday afternoon we went out and drug them back through the snow to our building.

The ’72 was in better shape then the ’73 and Brad already has a 3/4 ton pickup project he is working on, so there they sit.  About two weeks ago I walked by the ’72 and thought “You know it would be fun to get that thing running and just tool around in it”.  Well Brad was more than eager to get it off his hands and after a little talking to the wife, the title is now in my name.

So I put some pictures of it in the gallery taken after we started some disassembly.  My intention is not to do a frame off restoration, but to kind of fix it as I go along.  We talked to the son of the Previous Owner and he told us that he drove it for a day after his father’s death and the transmission went out.  To that end we have the TF 727 half out of it now.  One of the  PO’s had done some weird exhaust work on it and I have to cut that out before I can wrangle it and the transfer case out.

So I will post some pictures as I go along and maybe do a tech article or two on it.

Stay tuned, it will most likely be a fun ride!

RustyBucket

We will review them for relevance and post them if they meet our conditions.

RustyBucket

In the meantime, if you want to post a fresh photo of your ride, go into Gallery->User Rides and upload a photo.  If it is appropriate, we will show it in the user rides section of the Gallery.

If we really like it, we will use it for some feature in an upcoming post.

If you have a Project that you are working on and want to show detailed steps to complete it, use the contact form and we will setup a special Project gallery for you.